Data: Your Favorite Maps Results – November 2018

First off, I want to thank everyone who participated in the survey. The response I received was many times larger than I thought I would get. Again, thank you to everyone who participated to help me gather this data!

I did promise you all results. Results you shall receive. Some quick notes about the results of the survey:

THE SURVEY AND PREMISE

This survey was not scientific. It was designed to find the maps that elicit the strongest positive or negative responses. Limiting choices to up to 3 on each question – out of 38 possible selections – allowed me to find these strongest reactions. Also, keep in mind that Empire’s Border is brand new to all servers outside of the Chinese Server, so early opinions are still being formed.

Well, I believe this is where you all are looking for some data. I will give a link to the Raw Data at the very end, if you wish to see everything. To help keep this from being an information overload, I will list only those maps that received at least 10% or more votes in each category. Every map got at least 1 vote in each category. Again, remember that people could choose up to 3 maps in each category, so what the percentage below shows is how many chose that map as part of their 1, 2, or 3 selections they were allowed in that category.

For the votes below, remember, these are the strongest reactions (based on limiting to 3 choices per question). The other maps not listed (below 10% of the vote) just did not elicit as much strong reaction. This could be because they are perfectly average with nothing to make them outstanding. It may also be because while people may like or dislike them, they do not feel so to the extreme of the maps they did vote for. Again, this was designed with that purpose in mind – to find the extremes and figure out which maps are really loved or hated.

OVERALL FAVORITE MAPS

Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Least Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Prokhorovka

32.64%

Paris

33.60%

Malinovka

25.76%

Ensk

28.00%

Redshire

24.16%

Mines

24.64%

Sand River

17.60%

Erlenberg

14.24%

El Halluf

15.84%

Province

14.24%

Murovanka

15.20%

Abbey

13.28%

Westfield

14.56%

Fisherman’s Bay

13.12%

Steppes

12.32%

Himmelsdorf

12.64%

Glacier

10.56%

Fjords

11.68%

Himmelsdorf

10.40%

Malinovka

10.88%

Prokhorovka

10.72%

Tidbits on Overall Favorite/Least Favorite Maps: 3 maps stick out here – Prokhorovka, Malinovka, and Himmelsdorf. They appear on both lists. These maps definitely stand out to you all. To me, this shows they are maps that we should be comparing all others to, both positively and negatively. Their best features and worst features make them stand out from their peers.

LIGHT TANKS

Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Least Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Prokhorovka

59.82%

Ensk

56.06%

Malinovka

57.48%

Himmelsdorf

51.70%

Redshire

15.68%

Paris

38.83%

Sand River

14.95%

Abbey

24.81%

Murovanka

14.77%

Mines

17.99%

El Halluf

13.33%

Minsk

10.23%

Fisherman’s Bay

12.25%

Karelia

10.81%

Steppes

10.63%

Tidbits on Light Tank Maps: No surprise here. Wide open spaces and maps that give you chances to sneak around and spot from cover and use your view range/stealth are what you like. Small maps and city maps definitely prevent this sort of behavior, thus making them your least favorites while driving Light Tanks.

MEDIUM TANKS​

Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Least Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Live Oaks

20.36%

Paris

34.52%

Prokhorovka

19.09%

Ensk

33.13%

Redshire

18.73%

Abbey

22.22%

Murovanka

18.55%

Mines

20.04%

El Halluf

15.64%

Himmelsdorf

15.67%

Sand River

15.64%

Minsk

11.71%

Fisherman’s Bay

14.55%

Airfield

10.91%

Glacier

14.55%

Cliff

14.36%

Malinovka

14.18%

Karelia

12.91%

Steppes

12.00%

Tidbits on Medium Tank Maps: In every other category, there are a handful of standout maps and then most of the maps do not elicit much reaction. However, for Favorite Maps of Medium Tank drivers, this question had the widest range of maps that people like to play on, with differences in votes for all maps being tiny, with no large drop-offs. This definitely shows to me that Medium Tanks are fulfilling their position of “jack of all trades”, as people just like playing them on the widest range of maps compared to any other class of tank. The maps that people really disliked in Medium Tanks are those that are very restrictive of movement or have almost no way to easily support people in other sections of the map.

HEAVY TANKS

Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Least Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Himmelsdorf

50.72%

Malinovka

36.94%

Ensk

33.27%

Prokhorovka

33.08%

Ruinberg

20.68%

Fisherman’s Bay

15.86%

Paris

18.17%

Mines

15.86%

Lakeville

14.75%

Airfield

13.35%

El Halluf

13.13%

Province

11.61%

Siegfried Line

11.33%

Erlenberg

11.41%

Mountain Pass

10.25%

Sand River

11.41%

Glacier

11.03%

Cliff

10.25%

​Tidbits on Heavy Tank Maps: In news that shocks absolutely nobody, Heavy Tank drivers love maps with corridors that allow them to use their strong frontal armor while protecting their weak flanks/rears. Heavy Tank drivers also tend to dislike maps that have large open stretches where they are vulnerable before they can get to areas of the map where they can use their armor. As an aside – I honestly believe that had WG not changed the northern and southern most routes on Lakeville to provide more cover en-route to the city, that it would not be as well liked. Also of note – this is the only question where people liked Paris.

TANK DESTROYERS

Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Least Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Malinovka

37.88%

Ensk

45.90%

Prokhorovka

34.62%

Himmelsdorf

36.89%

Karelia

19.62%

Paris

27.66%

El Halluf

17.12%

Mines

22.34%

Murovanka

14.42%

Abbey

21.72%

Fisherman’s Bay

13.85%

Fjords

11.68%

Redshire

13.85%

Lakeville

12.69%

Airfield

12.50%

Sand River

10.96%

Cliff

10.58%

Erlenberg

10.58%

Steppes

10.58%

Glacier

10.00%

Tidbits on Tank Destroyer Maps: While there was a wide range of well liked maps by Tank Destroyer Drivers, they were different from Medium Tank drivers in that there was a very sharp cutoff on voting. Outside of the maps in the top 10%, votes dropped precipitously. All of these liked maps have something in common – they have a way for Tank Destroyers to operate at range and stay safe, whether the map has lots of corridors like Fisherman’s Bay or is wide open like Prokhorovka. The least liked maps all had something in common – almost all of the engagement corridors are very small and thus reduce a Tank Destroyers ability to work effectively at range.

SPGS

Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Least Favorite Maps

Percent of Vote

Malinovka

59.51%

Himmelsdorf

71.49%

Prokhorovka

51.68%

Ensk

57.91%

Airfield

19.46%

Paris

51.89%

Sand River

15.66%

Minsk

12.47%

Murovanka

15.44%

Mines

11.58%

El Halluf

14.99%

Live Oaks

12.30%

Steppes

12.08%

​Tidbits on SPG Maps: Once again with results that shock absolutely nobody, SPG players love wide-open maps or Maps where even with corridors, they still have ways to provide lots of support to the team. Maps that have lots of corridors with tall cover or very small maps are not liked by SPG drivers as these maps make it very difficult for them to support their teams, and are often very restrictive in where players can place their SPG to provide any effective fire at all.

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So, what are the conclusions that I can draw from this?

Paris, Mines, and Ensk are universally disliked, no matter what the class of tank (aside from Heavies liking Paris because city/corridor map).

Despite all anecdotal evidence to the contrary, Prokhorovka and Malinovka are well loved. I think people just like to pile on the ‘hurr-durr, arty bad’ circlejerk when it comes to these maps.

Most of the maps just do not elicit a strong response positive or negative. This could be because of many various things. As I stated much earlier on, these maps may just be average with no outstanding features, or they are liked/disliked but not nearly as strongly as the leaders in each category.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. I promised you all the raw data from this so you can see it yourselves. GO HERE for the raw data that has been sorted out neatly for those of you who have an irrational love for numbers.”

Prok is one of the few maps that actually requires some knowledge of the mechanics and of the map, teamwork and the map is perfectly playable regardless of the class you are playing with. It doesn’t matter whether you pick a light tank, tank destroyer or, god forbid, an SPG. The moment you see Prok, you know your tank will be useful, unlike…well, Ensk or Himmelsdorf.

You’re literally not giving any arguments to why prok would be useful to all tanks. I’d like if you’d explain to me why you think about the maps in that way.

What the hell are you supposed to do with a slow inaccurate heavy tank? Something like an IS-M for example.
The map focuses on long range combat, so unless I’m missing something, there’s literally nothing useful I can do.

Line 1 and 2 are purely focused on long range. If you push, you die. So you have to rely on a scout. and imo, having to rely on a scout to be able to push at all, just comes down to too much luck.
So I never use line 1-2 since there’s never anything going on.

Middle is only favorable when you have a tank capable of going hulldown, with gun depression. However, you mostly just fight other tank that are good hull down, so you’re not really able to pen eachother, while you’re getting artied and sniped from the side by TD’s hiding on the 1-2 line.

Pushing the hill is almost the same. Need gun depression, arty fire everywhere and TD snipes everywhere in your side. You can’t ever do anything or push without getting shot to death within seconds.

The only useful positions I’ve found:
A: North spawn: Sniping the middle from the northern hill entrance. But again, you have to rely on enemies getting spotted by your teammates. And it only favors accurate tanks.

B: North spawn: Trying to passive spot tanks on the hill by abusing the bushes on the northern hill entrance. Sometimes being able to fire without getting spotted as well.

C: South spawn: Going middle, and sniping off tanks that are on the northern hill entrance. Again, need accuracy and have to rely on allies spotting the enemy on the northern hill entrance, which often is not possible because of tactic B being used against your team.

So everything, imo, comes down to relying on your allies to spot enemies so that you can snipe them.
Only having to rely on having a good scout and having to rely on accuracy does not seem like a map where you can “always” be useful imo.

Feel free to give me any info on tactics that I might not know of yet, cause I’d love to learn how to be more useful on prok.

Also, imo
Ensk has plenty of opportunities to flank on the east flank with meds. I also snipe across the railways a lot in the middle. The west flank is fine for heavies and often even meds can be useful on there. There’s plenty of flanking possibilities once most heavies are in a slugfest.
It’s not as awesome for TD’s, but definitely not useless. Field and line 1 are often decent enough location where you can get a few shots off. Later on it sadly forces a more assault gun playstyle though.

Having to rely on scouts and teamwork is how this game should be IMHO. Otherwise what is the point of having scouts or make it a team based game in the first place? It’s one of the few maps where the scout is invaluable, which I believe is exactly the kind of effect scouts should have on the game.

>Everyone completely ignoring the fact that teamwork is a rare thing in WoT + that the map focuses a lot on longer range combat. Making anything with an inaccurate gun kinda pointless.

Yeah, I can see Prok being a good map by design, and it’s probably a great map for Clan Wars. I loved it when playing on it with Skirmishes.

But in randoms it’s an utterly terrible map.
As long as arty is in the game as it is, the map won’t work in randoms. Yeah, directly it is the fault of arty, but it’s in the game, thus Prok gets ruined by it, which makes the map a bad experience.

As long as there is no teamplay in randoms (Which there almost never is), the map won’t work in randoms either. Yeah, there’s your teamwork in clan wars etc. But you pretty much never see that in randoms. So again, it kills the experience of doing anything on the map, since you need the very thing that is not there! Teamwork!

So because you don’t happen to like Prokhorovka, there is no logic in this data? That’s statistics, maybe you are one of the few that don’t like it. I like Prok, only not when I’m driving a slow tank with 3 arty in the enemy team. But that’s because of arty, not because of the map.

Guess what kind of player has time for a survey. Guess who can go to desktop while playing the game without hesitation. You will find a correlation between open maps and the amount of voters.

Mines is a Tier7 max map, thats why it’s hated. It never was a high Tier map and the devs don’t care anymore.

Paris is hated by clickers because they can’t ruin the fun for heavys, and light and med tanks don’t know after all this years how to play on this map. They just camp the whole fucking game, doing nothing and then they complain about how bad the map is. Ofc it’s bad if you have no clue how to take positions, advance or just not be a camping coward.

Ensk is one of the best maps, its a close combat map for all classes except clickers. People are used to camp, be cowards and stay hidden that’s why they don’t understand this map. They are thrown into cold waters and need to fight for the first time instead of bushcamping, redlinecamping, behind clicker camping. It’s challenging for this kind of players, they don’t like change or increased difficulty.

The solution isn’t removing maps, a lot of the old maps were amazing. Northwest required some creative thinking at times , old school redshire could be brutal to the heavies that didn’t pay attention to their flanks, etc.etc.etc. The issues aren’t with the maps, it’s the players with the IQ of a chimp that are the problem

Not surprised by people disliking Minsk, Ensk and Paris (what did we do to deserve those?), but pretty amazed (positively so) that Prokorovka and Malinovka are so well-loved. The day WG wakes up from its vodka-induced stupor and understands that what we need are maps that are viable for every class will be a day worth celebrating.

I think the formula for creating a good map is that the urban area shouldn’t take more than 20% of the whole map and that most of the terrain should be passable. No corridors formed by ridges, but by hills. It encourages dynamic gameplay, because you can flank easier and make horizontal moves, instead of the oneway encounters we have to perform on 90% of the maps.

At least, this is what makes Malinovka, Prokhorovka, Redshire and Steppes great.

You cant flank on proko. Just just sit and wait for people to make misstakes and then you push and roll over the team. But the beginning of the game is a fucking campfest for sure on all those “open” maps.